Shoes round 1

dead grandma shoes (donate)

70s school marm (donate)

My first concerted purging project is the heap of shoes in my bedroom closet. Countless times, trying to find matching shoes in said pile has made me late for something, or, at the least, very frustrated. It’s dark, it’s behind a door, it’s disorganized, and, really, there are a lot of shoes that I never wear, or wear infrequently.

The goal for today was to get rid of the fairly easy-decision-to-purge shoe offenders. There are others that I’m keeping for sentimental or “might need someday” reasons which will be dealt with in some yet-to-be-scheduled round 2. But the idea is that I don’t need to stress myself out more in getting organized, just make some progressive steps.

Here are the results of today’s sort:

Donate

1 pair of brown faux-leather school marm shoes (I really like these, but they killed my feet the last time I wore them, and thus I never want to wear them)

1 pair weird cheap mauve and brown velcro sneakers (These are kinda cool, and I liked wearing them for a while, but I have enough sneakers — ones that are more practical)

1 pair black patent leather open-toe vintage old-lady shoes (These were my grandmothers and I took them from her closet after she died. Honestly, I’ll never wear them, and she and I weren’t close.)

1 pair black faux-leather ballet-flat type shoes (I’m sure I bought these in a panic at some point when I had to wear some sort of excuse for “girl shoes” for something. They don’t even register as being something I own or would think to wear).

Give to my sister

1 pair black faux-leather Steve Madden mary-jane flats (I ordered these online, thinking they’d be my go-to “girl shoes” but they proved not as comfortable as I hoped. I think my sister’s feet are slightly smaller, and I think she’s more tolerant of more delicate footwear than I am).

1 pair black leather probably very expensive heels with rosettes that look appropriate for some kind of ballroom dancing (These, again, belonged to my dead grandmother. I don’t wear leather, so I’m not sure why they became mine. Maybe I was going to try to sell them or something. Anyway, my sister might actually wear them with a vintage dress or something).

Throw Away

1 pair pink fake-Crocs that have a hole worn through the sole (I bought these from a street vendor in Baltimore, probably four or five years ago when we were walking around the city and my feet were killing me. I was dubious about Crocs and got the silliest color they had. Turns out they were amazingly comfortable and saved the trip. I then wore them into the ground over the course of a few years. Time to say goodbye.)

1 single mary-jane sneaker (I don’t know what happened to the other one, but even if it were around, I wore these out years ago).

What’s left?

There are still a lot of shoes left in my closet. Far less than many women, I’m sure, but more than I need. I still have my paint-spattered combat boots from high school. I have at least 2 pairs of insanely pointy, very buckly shoes from my goth days. I have several pairs of non-standard Crocs that I’ve never worn. I have one pair of faux-suede grey boots with a heel that I doubt I’ll wear, or like if I wear because I don’t really do heels. I have a pair of faux-leather mary janes I think are blister-provoking but I can’t remember. I have a pair of mary janes with silver sparkly stars on them that I may (or may not) have gotten too old for. I’m keeping one pair of cork-heeled, dead grandma mules for now. Not sure why.

Then there are the good and practical things that I’m happy to keep: my felted hemp boots with responsibly-sourced soles from Simple Shoes (very comfortable and cozy), my trail sneakers, my orange Simple sneakers. My incredibly comfortable (but dirty) red cloth Merrell mary-janes — which I can keep replacing the footbeds for, making them last a long time. A few pairs of cheap faux-leather and cloth flats for when I have to look sort of respectable (client meetings, etc). Some weird plaid cloth boots from Target, several pairs of cloth mary janes/china flats. My rubber and neoprene Boggs boots for the snow.

In the next phase with that closet, I have to make it more practical on the whole, so I don’t get frustrated looking for shoes. In fact, I’m thinking of segregating shoes into several locations (back hall, front hall closet, bedroom closet) — but first all of those locations must be purged and simplified.

I’m sure this is interesting to no one but me. But I’m completely ok with that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Expurgating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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